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Whoever “they” is says that everything happens for a reason.

That must be why it has been over a month since we visited regarding the weekly state of the Lake Oroville real estate market. In all honesty as each week came and went, and because I am certainly not a professional blogger by any means, I struggled to find the words I thought were needed to summarize each week’s activity. Especially given the fact the not much was different from one week to the next.

But just like “they” said, I now think I know the reason. Over the past 5 weeks in the Oroville real estate market we have seen a widening gap between Lake Oroville area home’s original asking price and the price at which it actually sells. To see this trend more clearly here is the “Reader’s Digest” version of my weekly Lake Oroville homes sales report. Here is what I think you can take away from this information, especially if you are a seller:

1. The widening gap between between original list price and the final sales price of Oroville area homes shows that some agents have demonstrated an “irrational exuberance” in pricing homes for their sellers when valuations bounced off the overdone drop in values. Remember that many agents will purposely recommend an inflated price to get the sellerto list the home for sale and then go back in a couple of weeks to convince the seller that the price needs to be reduced.

2. The inventory of homes is NOT loosening up as many homeowners, who would like to sell their Lake Oroville homes, still owe more on their mortgages than their home are worth. It is my belief that we will not see any significant increase in Lake Oroville area homes on the market until values get back to 2005-2006 levels, which, for many Oroville homeowners, could be more than a couple of years from now, or, the banks release more homes onto the market. ( if they actually have any to put on the market). Whether it be one or both of these things that occur, once it does, the rate that values have been increasing over the past 6 months will be a thing of the past and may actually back track somewhat. In other words, putting your home on the market now ( if you are able to) may be the best time to do so.

3. Based on the activity level in my office, the lack of an increase in the number of “Pending” sales is the a result of a shortage of quality, reasonably price homes on the Oroville market. As a homeowner who is considering the possibility of placing your home on the Lake Oroville real estate marketyou should seriously consider your price-point. It is easy to get wrapped up in the hype that you can promptly sell your home even if you price it a little high, because “you can always come down when an offer comes in.” But remember this: Quality, experienced, knowledgeable buyers agents will not show obviously overpriced homes to their clients and they won’t waste everyone’s time by writing an offer on one either. They will just patiently wait on you to reduce your price and then make a offer even lower than that.

MLS Stats for Oroville Area

Week Ending

Week Ending

Week Ending

Week Ending

Week Ending

11/7/2013

11/14/2013

11/21/2013

11/28/2013

12/5/2013

Avg. List Price

$188,044

$131,322

$145,620

$129,785

$154,580

Avg. Sold Price

$189,978

$130,044

$140,840

$124,746

$149,700

Sold Price % of Listing Price

101.03%

99.03%

96.72%

96.12%

96.84%

Avg. Original List Price

$196,717

$141,378

$150,020

$139,008

$169,780

Sold Price % of Original Price

96.57%

91.98%

93.88%

89.74%

88.17%

# of Single Family Listings

173

173

169

167

165

# of Pending Sales

63

67

67

67

67

Data compiled from the CRMLS multiple listing service for single family homes in the

This is starting to get down right boring.

Another slow week in the Lake Oroville real estate market this past week. Yes, it is true that the number of Oroville homes that sold in the past week is the best it has been in about 5 weeks. But that may be the only semi-bright spot in these numbers. I say semi-bright because if you look at the average sales price of each Oroville home sale it clearly shows that most of the sales that took place this week in Oroville were very low priced homes that appear to have been snapped up by investors.

Well, well, well what do we have here in the Lake Oroville area? The end of the Oroville foreclosure market?

Looking at this week’s home sales data for the Greater Oroville area you might draw such a conclusion being there was not ONE foreclosed property that sold in the past week. (see the red highlighted stat). To bolster your conclusion you may also point to the fact that this is the first week since I have been tracking this number dating back to October 2009 that there has not been at least one bank-owned Oroville home that has sold.

As I prepared to share this week’s Oroville real estate information with you my plan was to caution you that we should certainly expect to see more foreclosure sales take place and that it is a little early to say the foreclosure market in the Oroville area has met with extinction. However, as I was typing the first paragraph of this weekly editorial, and because I am such a great multitasker, I began think that I may be…..yes, wrong!

Maybe the “foreclosure market” IS over! Oh sure, there are still bank-owned homes for sale, but does the current inventory of Oroville bank-owned homes (19 homes, or less than 10% of the available inventory) actually constitute a “market?” I wonder?

I apologize that I am not leaving much in the way of comments today. I have a pretty full schedule today that forces me to keep my comments to a minimum.

If there is one number to look at over the past couple of weeks it is the pending sales numbers at the bottom of the chart. After running in the 80-90 range for the past few weeks it is now below 70 for the past 3 weeks. Look for August closing of Oroville homes to be lower than last year. The overall economy is still facing an uphill battle and the real estate market will continue to reflect this.

Here are the numbers for the Lake Oroville real estate market for the week ending 6/6/2013.

If you only look at the percentage change from the previous week you would think the Oroville market was crashing. But, fear not. It looks like that we just cleared up some inventory of homes that had been on the market for what now is an unusually long amount of time. Most of what sold was REALLY distressed property that would not qualify for any type of institutional loan, and, that I am guessing, investors picked up with cash purchases.

Last week was the first week in a LONG LONG time that bank-owned homes for sale in the Oroville real estate market numbered in the single digits. There were only 9, that’s right NINE, bank owned homes on the greater Oroville real estate market when I ran the report. Not having begun tracking this number until 2009, which was the depths of the Oroville real estate market downturn, I don’t have any data to support what a “normal” level of Oroville bank owned propertieson the market should be. But, if this trend continues I would speculate that by the end of the year, or the first part of 2014, these REO properties will be a non-issue. The wildcard is whether or not there actually is the dreaded “Shadow Inventory” lurking around the corner.

MLS Stats for Oroville Area

Week Ending

Week Ending

Week Ending

% Change

5/23/2013

5/30/2013

6/6/2013

Previous Week

# of Total Sales

16

16

14

-12.50%

# REO/Short Sales Sold (SS)

8

3

7

133.33%

% Sales that are REO/SS

50.00%

18.75%

50.00%

166.67%

Avg. List Price

$145,563

$144,269

$87,729

-39.19%

Avg. Sold Price

$140,741

$141,119

$77,704

-44.94%

Sold Price % of Listing Price

96.69%

97.82%

88.57%

-9.45%

Avg. Days On The Market

54

41

98

139.02%

Total Sales Volume

$2,329,000

$2,257,899

$1,040,350

-53.92%

# of Single Family Listings

151

150

150

0.00%

# Foreclosed On Market

14

10

9

-10.00%

% of Foreclosed on Market

9.27%

6.67%

6.00%

-10.00%

# Short Sales on Market

8

8

9

12.50%

% Short Sales on Market

5.30%

5.33%

6.00%

12.50%

Days of Inventory Left

66

66

75

14.29%

# of Pending Sales

109

87

87

0.00%

Data compiled from the CRMLS multiple listing service for single family homes in the

Greater Oroville real estate market area including the areas of Oroville, Palermo, Concow,

I know, I know, I can’t keep calling it the weekly Lake Oroville housing report if I don’t actually report WEEKLY. So, my phrase of the day is: Better late than never.

On the whole, there is not anything too earth-shattering in the Oroville real estate numbers over the past couple of weeks. Unit sales are remaining fairly steady and the inventory of homes for sale in the Oroville marketis sustaining the low levels that we have seen for a few months now. Oroville buyers are still having a tough time dealing with these low inventories in the face of rapidly rising interest rates, while sellers continue to hold back from listing their homes for sale waiting for the marketvalues to climb higher.

Here are the numbers for last week’s Lake Oroville real estate market. This is the third week in a row that the number of Oroville homesales has been in single digits, and the 7th week out of the past 8 for this. With inventories still low, and a lot of that inventory in disrepair it is becoming more and more difficult to find properties for Oroville area buyers. All of my team members have pools of buyers that they simply cannot find decent properties to show them.

It seems that this week’s Lake Oroville real estate market report reflects some ongoing reporting issues the local REALTORS are having with our new multiple listing service system.

It looks as though that the inventory of unsold homes is beginning to increase slightly. This may be an effect of some sellers trying to get a head start on what most people think is the peak selling season of Spring. Hopefully we can get the bugs worked out of our new MLS system soon. Watch for the weekly sales numbers for the Paradise real estate market later this week.

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